


the only cure for growing old

by orsaverba



Series: DamiTim Week 2020 [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Batkids Age Reversal, Damian Wayne is the first Robin, Friends to Lovers, Lazarus Pit, M/M, Or will be anyway, Reverse Robins, Temporary Character Death, Tim Drake is Red Hood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orsaverba/pseuds/orsaverba
Summary: is to die youngOr; The story of two Gotham birds, both near and far from home.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Damian Wayne
Series: DamiTim Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038710
Comments: 12
Kudos: 193
Collections: TimDami Week





	the only cure for growing old

**Author's Note:**

> DamiTim Week Day 2: **League!Damian or Tim**

"If you were wise, you would fly away, little bird."

Robin faced him with an expression of mild surprise, exhaling a short;

"Oh." 

The tip of his bo dropped, no longer held ready for a strike. Behind the carved mask, Damian clicked his tongue.  _ Sloppy _ .

Thus far, his father's new partner left him unimpressed.

Timothy Drake encompassed all that the word 'birdlike' evoked. He was both small and delicate, with long limbs and fine features, framed by a feathering of dark hair. The whiteouts on his domino hid his eyes, but Damian could imagine how they would blink owlishly at him, too-wide and too-blue. 

League surveillance had not conveyed just how much he looked like a bird in flight when he swung across the Gotham skyscape. He wore Robin's red and gold without Damian's emerald plumage and he was beautiful in it. As lovely as he was breakable.

But in person, his smile had a razor's edge no camera had yet managed to capture.

"Are you sure you want me to?" he asked. "You know I'll tell the Bat about this."

"That an assassin of the League let you live?" Damian scoffed. "He will think it a lie."

"No," Tim corrected, swaying forward a step. "I'll tell him how  _ Robin _ came home to roost."

Damian stared. 

This boy, who was strange and lovely in equal measure. The same one who stepped into the void left at his father's side and made it his own. The one who knew secrets and spoke them like a djinn granting wishes. 

He stared at him and his all-knowing smile, and said;

"You are Robin now."

  
  


* * *

  
  


They met on rooftops and in warehouses, on Gotham's filthy side streets and in its forgotten ruins. Most times, Damian was but a lash of shadow against the concrete backdrop, gone before Tim could notice him. And sometimes, he was a wraith, descending from the darkness to tip the odds in Robin's favor before disappearing with less than a whisper.

Other times, they talked.

"The more you avoid him, the worse it gets, you know."

Damian regarded Robin stoically. 

"I am avoiding no one," he said. "As attempting to do so has proven mostly futile."

The snort of amusement was all Tim, Robin dressings or not.

"He just wants you to come home,  _ tayir _ ."

Arabic syllables rolling off of Robin's tongue sounded like a birdsong. Damian would never tire of hearing it, even if he scowled every time the pet name left his successor's lips. He always got an impish smile in answer.

"He thinks what I am doing is wrong. That it is too dangerous and I am not  _ capable _ ."

"You know that isn't true," Robin dismissed, gesturing the words away with his pianist's hands. "You're his son. He's frightened."

Damian pursed his lips and raised his brow as the little bird dared to skip closer.

The last thing he'd done before leaving home was argue with his father. They screamed at each other, spitting venom like a pair of cobras starved and left to tear one another apart. Damian hadn't meant half the things he said and he knew his father was the same, even if neither of them could admit it. 

What it came down to was the  _ mission _ and the lengths they were willing to go to for it. For father, there was no line-- So how could he expect Damian to accept limitations on himself?

"I think what you're doing is very brave," Robin hummed, so much closer now than he should ever be. "But I agree with B; it would be nice if you came home."

Damian caught the hand that reached for him, pressing his thumb into the bowl of his palm. 

"Not until my work is done, little bird," he murmured. "Not until my work is done."

  
  


* * *

  
  


This would be his last night in Gotham, he couldn't risk crossing her borders again. Not with his mother's spies skirting his shadow, carrying rumors of his deeds back to her. He would risk almost anything to achieve his goal, to  _ break _ the League--

But not Tim.  _ Never _ Tim.

One last time. One last night spent chasing his little bird across the rooftops of his childhood, the song of Gotham strong in his blood. Damian knew it to be painfully selfish of him to take the chance, but he couldn't resist. 

At the end of the night, Robin stood bathed in pearlescent moonlight atop Wayne Tower.

( The legacy of his ancestors below, the legacy of his father above. )

"You aren't coming back, are you?"

Tonight, there was none of Robin's playful scampering, no games to be had. He approached without pretense, each step sure.

"No," Damian murmured.

"I knew it," Robin smiled, bitterly sad. "You never stay with me for my whole patrol."

Tim lifted the whiteouts of his domino, revealing the summer sky blue of his eyes. They took Damian's breath away, too warm and trusting to be gazing at him. He wanted to drown in them, let go his ambitions and simply  _ fall _ .

"Promise me I'll see you again,  _ tayir _ ."

"Of course you will."

"Yes, but promise me? Please,  _ tayir _ , I need to hear it."

Damian reached for him and Tim came, melting into his arms as though they'd done this a thousand times before. He fit, molding in place like a missing puzzle piece, drawn together like magnets to their opposite poles.

"I promise, little bird, we will meet again."

Under the pale moonlight, Tim's eyes shone, dewdrop tears lining his bottom lashes. Damian kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, before lowering their mouths together in a gentle kiss. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


A cadaver lay upon the stone table. A corpse with slender limbs and fair features. In life, the skin would have been flush, the eyes baby blue, the mouth rosewater pink. 

Robin--  _ Timothy, little bird, oh my little bird _ \--lay prone on the table, cold and dead.

"Your dear father's nemesis," his mother said flippantly, circling the table like a vulture above carrion. " _ Joker _ had his way with him."

She stopped, brushing a strand of dark hair back from Tim's lifeless cheek. 

"Poor thing," she hummed without emotion.

Damian could hardly breathe. 

" _ Why _ ," he choked, throat full of bile. "Why would you disturb his rest, mother?"

"Because, my prince, he is your father's beloved bird. He is broken without him, has lost himself in his sorrow."

(  _ No _ , Damian wanted to scream.  _ The one who is lost is me, the one whose heart will never mend is me! I am the one who loved him most, I am the one whose heart he took into the cold, cold earth! _ )

"I thought once that giving him a child would earn me his favor, but he has done nothing to seek you out, now you've left him. I think, perhaps, this boy might better garner his attention."

His mother smiled with all the sweetness of a pit viper.

"And if not, it will be amusing to twist him, to cause your father  _ pain _ ."

  
  


* * *

  
  


( Damian should burn the body, leave Timothy to his eternal rest. He should disappear with him in the dead of night, back to Gotham where they belong. There are many things Damian should do.

But he is only human. He is selfish and his heart is broken.

"Forgive me, little bird," he whispered. "Please forgive me for this." )

  
  


* * *

  
  


The body sinks beneath the vibrantly green waters, submerged beneath the surface on a litter of wood and silk.

When Tim erupts from its surface, he's screaming. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


A cool desert breeze drifted through the open windows and set the sheer curtains dancing. The setting sun bathed their room in golden light, casting long shadows against the far walls. 

Damian watched from their bed as Tim tucked his hair behind the curve of his ear, eyes fixed on the blade he held to his whetstone. 

"You know you need not do this, little bird," he said gently. "Let me be the one to bear this burden."

"You're too selfless,  _ tayir _ ."

Tim lifted the blade, examining it by the fading sunlight. Its sharpened edge glowed.

"We can't afford that, though," he continued. "They must believe we're like them. Both of us."

Deeming his work satisfactory, he slid the blade back into its sheath and set it aside. 

Tim turned to him and smiled, pale green eyes aglow. Gone was the summer sky blue and yes, sometimes Damian missed it. But he would trade a thousand clear blues for the tick of Timothy's pulse in his veins, the steady thump of his heartbeat in his chest. 

( "I'm sorry, little bird, I will never be able to explain how  _ sorry _ I am."

Tim pressed kisses to his mouth, held his cheeks in hands without calluses. All evidence of  _ Robin _ wiped clean. 

"Don't be sorry for bringing me back to you,  _ tayir _ . Never be sorry for that." )

Tim crawled onto their bed, draping his long limbs over Damian's body, curled catlike into the crook of his arm. He tucked his face into the column of his throat, breathing in and exhaling a contented sigh.

"If I have to kill to convince your grandfather of my fealty, then I will," Tim hummed against his skin. "It's nothing you haven't done before."

"I took this path willingly, little bird. You--"

"Are doing the same."

Damian pressed his lips to the crown of his lover's head.

"There is still time, little bird," he said. "You could return to father's side, be his Robin again."

"No, my time as Robin is at an end," Tim replied. "There will be another after me, and another after them. And one day, we'll be there to watch them spread their wings for the first time."

They would flee one day, together. When they'd had time to heal their broken wings and sharpen their talons, torn the foundations from the League's strongholds and left it to crumble in on itself. They would fly back to the roofs of Gotham, back to the nest they were born in, and be home.

**Author's Note:**

> I realize Jason crawled out of his grave in canon, but let's just go with the Under the Red Hood storyline where Ra's stole his body instead.
> 
> Comments and kudos mean the world to me, and if you'd like to chat you can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/orsaverba) or [Tumblr](https://orsa-verba.tumblr.com)!


End file.
